Ohio State men's basketball | Highlights from Chris Holtmann's first call-in show

Monday

Dec 11, 2017 at 6:59 PM

Adam Jardy The Columbus Dispatch @AdamJardy

Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann took part in his weekly radio call-in show tonight. Six days removed from playing a reduced role on the season debut while on the road recruiting, Holtmann was in the studio with play-by-play announcer Paul Keels and analyst Ronnie Stokes.

“I love doing this, by the way,” Holtmann said to kick things off. “This is my first time doing this. We’ve got some wonderful people sitting here with us. It’s good to be with you guys, it really is. I’m looking forward to doing it a lot with you guys.”

In case you couldn’t listen, here are the highlights:

*Holtmann took a submitted question asking him about the contributions from the freshmen on this year’s team.

“It’s been great,” he said. “I think we expected that all three would play an important role, just knowing our lack of depth, and also knowing all three as players. I got to see Kaleb quite a bit. We had recruited his brother a little bit. We felt like he was going to have an immediate impact. We knew with Musa our depth on the perimeter, he was going to be forced into a role and he was capable physically. He’s given us really good minutes at times. Kyle, I think, has been hampered with some injuries but boy ha she really given us quality minutes of late. His activity, his offensive rebounding, his ability to play with versatility on the perimeter. He took a charge against Charles Matthews on the baseline in that game.”

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Holtmann said he just had a conversation with Jallow at 7:30 on Saturday morning, “and then he got an extra lift in, and then we had film and pregame stuff and the game at noon. He’s got such a capacity for work that I said, ‘You’ve got to understand this is a longer season than you’ve experienced. Part of maturing is understanding you have to manage your body, the mental and physical demands.’ ”

*Regarding Young, Holtmann said his injury forced the staff to talk to walk-on Matt Lehmann about possibly needing to play some important minutes. The good news for the Buckeyes, Holtmann said, was that William & Mary isn’t a team that fouls a lot.

It’s the third ankle injury publicly disclosed for the team this season.

“We’ve had more sprained ankles than I’ve ever had here, so if anybody has a recipe for how to eliminate that, let me know,” he said. “We have a fantastic training staff and we’ve taped plenty of ankles, but we’ve had more of those than I care to remember.”

*On the injury report, Holtmann said both Micah Potter and Young are on their way back. “We could potentially have both guys back for Saturday,” Holtmann said.

*Holtmann said they have put Keita Bates-Diop on Stanford’s point guard late in the game, in addition to guarding every other position. Holtmann said he’s coached one other guy who had a 7-4 wingspan who could really defend, but wasn’t as impactful offensively as Bates-Diop has been for the Buckeyes.

Defending Bates-Diop on ball screens is likely atop the scouting report of every team preparing for the Buckeyes, Holtmann said.

*Holtmann also took questions. One caller asked him about his post strategy in Big Ten play.

“I was a guard, but … you have to adapt to your roster,” he said. “We do have some interior guys that can play with their back to the basket. You have Kaleb, but you also have Jae’Sean, a position-less player who plays 15 feet and in. Keita can play in the long-post area. We believe that the best and most-highest quality of three-point shot usually comes out of some type of paint touch. Given the increased size and physically in the Big Ten ... in some ways we need to get even more committed to that.”

The Buckeyes want Wesson to post where he has to take two dribbles or fewer and score. Bates-Diop’s posting up is a different nature, Holtmann said. As the call-in show was taking place, Holtmann said assistant coach Ryan Pedon was going over an offensive edit with the players emphasizing on feeding the post.

Another caller asked about Jallow’s ceiling, being only 17 years old.

“We have two 17-year-old freshmen, he and Kaleb, and I’ve never had that before in a freshman group. It’s an exciting thing for Buckeye Nation to be able to see that and know these guys have the opportunity to keep getting better. Musa, we’re excited about his development and growth. He’s such a driven young man. He’s an outstanding student. He’s so committed to improving and sometimes he can work himself so hard. I think his skill development is going to be what is really important in the coming years. He has all the ability to impact the game defensively.”

Holtmann said director of basketball operations David Egelhoff mentioned to the staff that Jallow could potentially graduate early, and the coach called Jallow’s mom that evening.

Another asked about his favorite thing so far in Columbus.

“I had some outstanding pizza Saturday,” he said. “Planks. That was some really good pizza. Now that’s probably not the answer you’re looking for, but when you’re a coach you take the small things and appreciate them. We have not had a chance to see much of Columbus or experience Columbus. We have literally hit the ground running from day one. Walking out in the first quarter of the Oklahoma game and being introduced in front of what an incredible environment that was, for our family, my daughter, she’s still waving to the crowd. That was as special as anything we’ve been a part of.”

*Regarding recruiting the state of Ohio, it’s “really, really important for us,” he said. “Clearly it’s the most important area we can recruit. I think you’ll see our staff in the coming years, as soon as we got the job we’ve tried to make that priority an emphasis. It’s not to say we’re going to get every good player from the state of Ohio. The reality is we’ll certainly get our fair share. The important thing is they need to be Buckeyes and right fits and guys who want to be a part of what we’re doing. I think this is such a special place that it’s going to draw a lot of the very best players from this great state.”

Another asked if there are differences between recruiting at Butler and Ohio State.

“The size of both institutions and obviously the benefit of a football program here that is so nationally known and nationally relevant. I think some of the success that Butler had in the last 10 years elevated recruiting, and also the move into the Big East. That created a lot of parallels in terms of the type of players that we were looking for. I also think that being at Butler, you have a great state to recruit from and being here, being the state university, you have a tremendous and deep state to recruit here.”

*Wesson didn’t play as much against Michigan because Young and Bates-Diop were better options late on ball-screen defense, leading to some offense-defense substitutions, Holtmann said.

ajardy@dispatch.com

@AdamJardy

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